Ghevar with Kesar Rabdi

Recipe for Kesar Rabdi  

Ghevar is a Rajasthani dish. It is a Rajasthani dessert, traditionally made during the Teej festival but I made it on my daughter’s birthday. I always cook something new at home on her birthday that I have never cooked before. I know my daughter loves ghevar; I have never made ghevar before so it was something new for me. When my friends called to wish her, they wanted to know what new thing I would make that day. I told them I would make ghevar and they were surprised since not many people make ghevar at home. The ghevar turned out very well; I was so happyJ

Ingredients

1 cup maida (plain flour)

1 cup ice cold water

¼ cup ghee

¼ cup cold milk

 A pinch of yellow food color

A pinch of cardamom powder

Few saffron strands

Oil /Ghee for deep frying

For the Sugar syrup

 1 cup sugar 

½ cup water

Procedure

For the sugar syrup

Combine the sugar and water in a pan and simmer till it reaches a 1 string consistency.

Remove from the heat and keep warm.

How to Proceed

Take ghee in a large wide bowl. Taking one tsp cold water at a time rub the ghee vigorously , take more water as required , till ghee becomes very white.

Now add milk mix them well. Add maida to it slowly, and keep mixing very well. 

Now add a little water to this dough, and not in one shot .Pour in little water and mix the dough, be careful that there are no lumps formed. Keep an adding water slowly .Dissolve color in some water and add to batter .Add more water as required to make the batter of thin consistency .( it should run off easily when pour from spoon.) make a lump free and smooth batter. Add cardamom powder and saffron in the batter.

To make at home, we don’t need a mould. But we need a cylindrical pan to fry in. I used a small sauce pan to fry. Usually ghee is used for frying. I used half vegetable oil and half ghee. Fill half the pan with ghee/oil. Heat it on high flame till the ghee/oil gets hot. Check the correct temperature by dropping a small portion of batter and see if it immediately comes up and does not stick to the bottom. Once the ghee is hot, take a spoonful of batter (for my pan two ladles of batter were enough.) and pour it in the middle of the vessel in a thin stream from 6 inches height. You could actually increase or stretch the height as much as you can; greater the height, better the texture. I stretched out my arm fully over the vessel to reach the best height I could before I poured in the batter. When the sizzling slowly decreases stop pouring the batter.

Do not handle the ghevar until the sizzling stops. It will be very soft and may break.

When the sizzling reduces you can reduces the flame and cook ghevar until it reaches a golden brown color.

Once it is properly fried, take it out very carefully by inserting the thin rod in the middle and lifting the whole ghevar with it. 

Keep the ghevar slightly tilted on a plate to remove excess ghee. Similarly, make 6-7 ghevars.

Usually ghevar is dipped in hot syrup and served. But I made the syrup ahead. While serving I just drizzled the syrup on top of the ghevar.

If you wish, you could garnish the ghevars with sliced almonds and pistachios and silver varque.

For making Malai/Rabdi Ghevar, apply a coat of Rabdi on the top and sprinkle dry fruits on it.